Riding With Ruhan

I haven't done a full-blown Commander deck build here in a while and since I seem to do a fair number of green and/or black Commander decks this week I've decided to stray from my well-worn path. The Commander decks offered up a handful of new non-green and non-black legends to build around and one of the ones that has intrigued me the most is Ruhan of the Fomori — so let's dig in shall we?

Random Ruhan

On the surface Ruhan is just a big dumb beater a creature whose "special ability" is being oversized for his casting cost. Not only is he dumb he's also random; something that can drive some players nuts. Me I find that drawback fascinating since the randomness can potentially absolve you of blame for who you end up attacking. One big part of multiplayer Magic is the politics of who and when you attack—are you being a bully at the table or the hero? Are you provoking someone to go on revenge tilt? Do you just sit back and try to keep a low profile even if there's a player or two wide open?

With Ruhan though all those questions that typically go through your head fly right out the window. Ruhan doesn't care what you're thinking about; he's going to attack someone each turn if able.

You can manage this a little bit. For instance if you can give your creatures haste you can declare your attack step before casting Ruhan if you want to hold him back a turn (for instance if you want to equip him with Swiftfoot Boots for the hexproof but need to fend off an attack).

Another possible angle is playing Zedruu the Greathearted who's conveniently in the same colors as Ruhan alongside the sweet Vows from Commander (Vow of DutyVow of Flight and Vow of Lightning). Enchanting Ruhan with a Vow and then giving control of that Vow to a player you don't want Ruhan to attack can be a pretty nifty way to push the big Giant Warrior in a desired direction.

I also think it wouldn't hurt to consider how the randomness of Ruhan is resolved. For instance if you assign each player a number and then roll dice even though the dice are determining who Ruhan attacks you are still the one who rolled them. I have different method that may help lend a little more psychological weight to the idea that you are not to be held responsible for who Ruhan attacks: assign each player a card and have each card's duplicate in a stack in front of you. Whenever it's time for Ruhan to attack shuffle the stack and have one of your opponent's pick the card to see who Ruhan goes after. Oh man you picked yourself! Sorry dude… It's a subtle difference that may not really yield any benefits but you never know it just might!

Fomori to the Face

Of course once Ruhan is committed to the attack you want him to get through and hit someone and not necessarily just get chump blocked by some token. Evasion and protection aren't abilities Ruhan has naturally but there are plenty of ways you can put in your deck to give those to him—equipment auras Mother of Runes incarnations like AngerWonder and Glory. Gwafa Hazid Profiteer can Pacify any big scary blockers. Master Warcraft can manage who blocks and who doesn't.

Even though Ruhan is a big boy he still needs to connect with someone three times to kill them with commander damage. Due to the random nature of Ruhan's attack it may take a while to actually accumulate enough hits to finally kill off an opponent. This means that you'll likely want to take a "Voltron" approach to Ruhan enhancing him with abilities to make him lethal in just one or two swings. Luckily Ruhan gives you access to all the fantastic equipment-based Magic cards that can really enable this strategy to be quite strong.

Playing Defense

Of course with Ruhan constantly attacking and potentially provoking counterattacks from opponents who either don't buy into the "it's Ruhan's fault not mine!" defense or decide that the best way to remove the threat of Ruhan is to remove you you likely need to protect yourself. White blue and red give you access to a pretty solid collection of "attack tax" cards you can load up on: Windborn MuseGhostly PrisonPropagandaCollective Restraint and Kazuul Tyrant of the Cliffs are all great cards that just get even crazier in multiples. Heck Copy Enchantment and other copy cards are in blue if you want to really double up the defenses! Let's also not forget about staples like Maze of Ith and Mystifying Maze.

Then there are ways to untap Ruhan after he's attacked; cards like Reveille Squad Sword of the Paruns Aggravated Assault and Thousand-Year Elixir. Crackleburr can help untap if you've got enough red or blue creatures to reliably have out there. Techy Masako the Humorless lets Ruhan play defense even if he's tapped with flash to make it a surprise the first time!

Keeping these three themes in mind it's pretty clear we can go several different directions with Ruhan. I'm quite intrigued by the notion of Zedruu and the Vows in a Ruhan deck but I think for my first pass I'm going to instead focus on a very strong equipment theme. Here's what I've got built currently:

You'll notice that I've only got one land in here that produces colorless mana. My rule of thumb when building three-color decks—especially those without green—is that you want all your mana to produce some color of mana. Sunhome is worth making an exception for. Panorama's produce colorless mana but are there as fetchlands you can hold off using so long as you don't desperately need the basic land. That way you can use it as a mana source until you're ready to shuffle your library (in this list combining with Sensei's Divining Top).

I also decided one way to get around Ruhan's randomness was to just increase the number of attacks you make each turn. Red gives you some nice options here like Waves of Aggression which turns any extra lands you get (hello Journeyer's Kite) into extra attack steps. Aggravated Assault is particularly nasty in combination with Sword of Feast and Famine—assuming you hit an opponent you'll get to untap all your lands and then pay five mana to untap all your creatures and get another attack step potentially over and over again. Scuttlemutt can tap to manage the colors of potential blockers (and keep untapping each attack) allowing the Sword's protection abilities to let Ruhan connect. Hellkite Charger is a bit more expensive but can provide a similar combination.

Instead of trying to set up some sort of graveyard recursion I decided to go with Trinket Mage + Elixir of Immortality to shuffle stuff back into the deck especially since I have some ways of Tutoring things from the library.

So there you have it—one take on making a kickass Ruhan deck! I got an email from the awesome Bruce Richard (previously of SCG Talent Search fame contributor to the Muse Vessel blog and currently featured on Kitchen Table Tuesdays over at GatheringMagic.com) and he's working on his own Ruhan deck. He's interested in drawing comparisons between various takes on Ruhan in an upcoming column so keep your eyes peeled for my deck and other people's Ruhan decks over there in the coming weeks! I have to admit I nabbed some ideas from his deck for mine: SunforgerGoblin Ruinblaster Sunhome Fortress of the Legion and Godo Bandit Warlord are all thanks to Mr. Richard.

Shout out to Sheldon Menery for suggesting a Tolkien-themed "Riders of Rohan" Ruhan deck on Twitter… I just might incorporate that into Ruhan Part 2: The Vows of Zedruu. Hero of Bladehold seems like a slam-dunk choice for owyn and maybe Ranger of Eos for Aragorn. Sadly Dwarves in Magic suck really bad (don't get me started again on this) so there's nothing remotely on par with badass Gimli though I suppose Dwarven Miner would at least be a solid utility card. The choices for non-green Elves are really slim and nothing of quality is available to wear the name Legolas. Searching for badass Kithkin for the hobbit Merry—sworn to the service of the King of Rohan—leads me to think Figure of Destiny is the best pick here though Mistmeadow Skulk is a flavorful choice—protection from converted mana cost three or greater calls to mind Merry's role in killing the Witch-king of Angmar Lord of the Nazgl.

That's it for this week! I hope you have a great weekend whatever you have planned… Though I know where many of you will be Sunday night just like me—glued to AMC watching the season finale of The Walking Dead. I'm literally buzzing with excitement and can't wait! Can you believe how the second half of this season has unfolded? Wow!!!

Take care

Bennie

starcitygeezer AT gmail DOT com

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About Bennie Smith

Bennie Smith began playing Magic in 1994 and started writing about it shortly after. A Virginia State Champion, he enjoys few things better than winning at tournaments with home brews. He also recently published The Complete Commander. If you enjoy his writing, check out his fantasy and horror fiction blog.